It’s pretty common for techies to overestimate how widely their opinions and desires are shared. If you think a good chunk of the population wants to sideload apps, then this feels like an attack. But it’s really just a decision not to cater to a tiny fraction of the market. It’s the same thing in discussions about headphone jacks or small phones. People act like it’s nefarious, when really it’s just that their desire for those things is pretty uncommon.

Personally I think there should be a lot more work done on how to secure arbitrary apps from arbitrary sources so that they are unable to hurt people, rather than focusing so much on on preventing random apps from being installed in the first place. This would help the average person as well, since these walled gardens still make mistakes. But it’s not realistic to put a box in everyone’s pockets that’s three taps away from sending all their money to some dude in Laos.